Josephus’ Attitude towards Repetition and Doublets in His Jewish Antiquities

Josephus deals with the repetitions and doublets in the Hebrew Bible in several ways. In some cases, he repeats almost verbatim the form of the tradition, while in others, he omits it. In this matter, Josephus is not indebted to the LXX, in which all these repetitions are found (with some modifications) in accordance with the MT. It is difficult to know in advance when Josephus will include the repetition as in the MT or when he will choose to omit it. However, in those places where the repetition is omitted, this may have stemmed from a desire to spare the reader. When he retained it, this may have been because he did not consider the case a duplicate, but rather believed that separate and different stories are present, which each contain contributions to be made to the understanding of the narratives.